1st-of-its-kind pancreatic cancer vaccine trial in Cincinnati looking for patients

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- A pancreatic cancer vaccine trial is now open for enrollment at the University of Cincinnati Cancer Center, the first trial of its kind in the Midwest, the university said in a news release Tuesday.

Pancreatic cancer is the third-leading cause of cancer death in women and the fourth-leading cause in cancer death for men, according to the National Cancer Institute. More than 64,000 Americans were diagnosed in 2023.

UC said the trial builds on the same mRNA technology used to development the COVID-19 vaccines.

"They took the COVID virus and sequenced it and then made a vaccine against its RNA sequence, and here they do the same thing," Davendra Sohal, MD, associate director for clinical research at the Cancer Center and professor of internal medicine in UC's College of Medicine, said in a news release Tuesday. "After surgery to remove the tumor, a piece of it is taken and sent to the lab. They sequence the tumor, make a highly personalized vaccine to target each person's cancer specifically, and send it back to us."

UC said the vaccine is developed in four to six weeks while patients recover from surgery. Patients are then given six weekly injections, followed by six months of standard chemotherapy and six more vaccine injections as boosters.

Sohal said anyone diagnosed with pancreatic cancer that can be treated with surgery but hasn't started any other treatments is eligible to enroll. There will be 260 patients enrolled globally, and Sohal hopes to enroll as many as possible in Cincinnati.

"There's hardly any downside," Sohal said. "These patients all get surgery and all get chemotherapy anyway. There's no placebo (everyone knows what they are getting), and there's no shortchanging them on standard treatment."

For more information on the trial, call 513-584-7698 or email cancer@uchealth.com.

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